Wednesday, 20 August 2014

Punch Taverns says it now has the necessary “momentum behind” its debt restructuring proposal that aims to slash a quarter off the pub group’s £2.3bn debt burden.

Stephen Billingham, executive chairman of Punch, said: “We have more people on side than we did on June 26. I think the company is optimistic that it is now on the road to completing the restructuring".

Francis Patton, [Punch Taverns] customer services director said: “Too many people are looking at the smoking ban as a threat, but we know this is a huge opportunity. The smoking ban is a great opportunity to get new customers (who want to eat) into pubs and also keep people there who go regularly.”

12 comments:

I would be basking in self-satisfied schadenfreude if it wasn't such a bloody disaster; such a crying shame for the unique institution that was (past tense, note) the British pub.

The parallels between the morons who (knowingly - because know they certainly did) precipitated the death of the British pub with their draconian smoking ban and the Taleban who smashed the 2000 year old giant Buddha statues in Bamiyan, Afghanistan, is stark.

Pure, unadulterated vandalism in the name of a warped ideology. They (the rent-a-mob from TC) should be publicly pilloried and locked in stocks in Trafalgar Square so we could pelt them with dog shit. (If I could think of anything worse than dog shit, then I would have used it. Ideas? On the back of a postcard, please.)

I haven't the words to describe how I feel about the despicable bottom-feeders who gleefully destroyed what so many held dear. If there is a heaven and hell, they will burn in hellfire for all eternity.

I can only think that the majority of the top-knobs who run the likes of Punch (and all the other big PubCos, for that matter), must surely all be non-smokers. Because if there’s one universal truth, it’s that non-smokers – no matter how tolerant or sympathetic – just don’t “get” smoking at all. Never-smokers don’t “get” smoking because they’ve never experienced it, and ex-smokers don’t “get” smoking because, like born-again Christians, they won’t allow themselves to “get” it any more. So of course all these decision-makers, as non-smokers of one variety or another, didn’t think that the smoking ban would be “a big deal” for smokers. They were wrong, of course, as the numbers show, but what’s surprising is their seeming inability (or is it just plain unwillingness?) to recognise that they were wrong and to do something about putting it right (like lobbying for a change in the law). It seems that they would rather let their businesses go to the wall than admit that they made a bad call. With people like that in charge of our big corporations – and I’m sure the mentality is the same in all big businesses, not just the PubCos - it’s perhaps no wonder that the country’s finances are still in the doldrums, despite politicians' hopeful proclamations of economic growth (and when are we going to see any real evidence of that, I wonder??).

Oh Dear...There is no need to get convoluted. Punch Taverns is going to the wall because it caused its pubs to lose their soul, in favour of 'eateries'. But there is massive competition in 'eateries', and massif edifices (aka pubs) cost lots of money and cannot compete with cheaper eateries. Meanwhile, they have eliminated their best customers on a whim. Fools.

The number of ex smokers hasn't really altered since before the ban, and relatively few ex smokers are/would have been regular pub goers. Kowtowing to idiots by supporting a ban of what most regular high spenders demand was clearly a massive error of judgement. The non-smoking non-pub users pre ban weren't deterred by us stinkers - the majority simply weren't keen on pubs. I know lots of people, regardless of smoking status, who wouldn't dream of regularly popping down to the local. My sister, a fervent anti, once said she didn't do pubs because of the smoke. She still doesn't. - but is pleased that she could if she so wanted to.

Admit they were wrong? Not a chance, these holier than thou, who can never be wrong are just like the pompous idiots in government, who also can never be wrong - even when it is staring them, loud and clear and in glorious technicolour!